In 2025, I am convinced we will see AI join the org chart—and not just join it but transform the work and skills we need as human workers and leaders. 

AI is a fundamental disruption of knowledge work and perhaps the largest and most critical organizational transformation we will see in our lifetimes. As I talk to business and HR leaders, what I hear most consistently from them is a growing understanding of AI’s potential to change, accelerate, and transform the core functions of their businesses – and questions of how they effectively lead when everyone has AI.

I discussed that exact question as part of a standing-room only Davos panel and more recently in a webinar with Kevin Delaney, former reporter at The New York Times and The Information who is now the founder and CEO of Charter, a media company focused on the future of work.

Here are my biggest takeaways.‍

In 2025, AI is joining the org chart

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“I view AI as a colleague, as a teammate on many of our teams.”– Francine Katsoudas, Chief People, Policy & Purpose Officer at Cisco

AI is not just a tool, but a new kind of colleague and a new way work gets done in the organization. While we’ve all heard of AI Agents, probably too much in the last six months, the AI that will work alongside us will be more than just agents. It will also be AI coaches (like what we’re building at Valence) who help us better relate and collaborate with each other. AI isn’t just more boxes on an org chart, it’s stronger connections between the people in them.

Organizations have always sought out tools that can automate rote tasks. But they have grasped even more for technologies that improve collaboration, communication, and trust. Throughout history, the telegraph, telephone, fax, email, and instant messaging have successively served this role. AI doesn’t just help us reach more people more quickly, as these technologies did, it gives us a tool to reveal to human workers the softer patterns in how we communicate and how we can communicate better. 

Over the last two years, AI hasn’t just automated certain aspects of knowledge work, it’s also given us the means to help us work better (like the personalized coach we have built at Valence). These AI coaches can learn about us as individuals, and give tailored support—whenever we need it, anytime during the day or night. And they remember everything, so they become more tailored and effective, the more we use them. 

‍This is no longer AI as IQ. We are past the point of a virtual intern or concierge. When AI empowers frontline decision making, it is AI as EQ. When we increase the EQ of leaders and their employees, we make a whole organization greater than the sum of its parts. It’s not about making leadership more efficient, but raising the collective EQ of an organization.

(One of our favorite examples of AI’s power to improve EQ, and with it, the business, is Costa Coffee, whose store managers used our AI coach to turn around underperforming stores last holiday season by finding new ways to motivate their teams.) As Lucien Alziari, the CHRO of Prudential, put it at our AI Summit, instead of Chief People Officers and CHROs, we will need Chief Work Officers, executives who can think strategically about how work gets done and how to best structure the organizations for humans and AI to work together.
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Command and control doesn't work: The AI change starts with leaders using it

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“I think about the old mental models of: the leader has the answers. Their job is to control what happens. If nothing else, AI kills that mental model. It becomes clear that you are not the one with the answers. The job is to have the questions.” - Amy Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School

The old model of enterprise technological change was to mandate a top-down decision: Even before AI, this mindset was a failing tactic for change management in flattening organizations of highly skilled knowledge workers. With AI, there’s the added challenge of overcoming fear and creating a sense of psychological trust and safety. 

As Amy put it, in the human psychology around adopting AI, there are two competing forces: “One is that fear, in fact, can go up because there's just this overall sense that things are moving so fast. On the other hand, [AI] is this kind of colleague who can quickly fill me in on what I don't know.”

So, forget command and control. These tools need buy-in that cannot be decreed from above. Fortunately, AI itself is built to enhance self-reflection. As a colleague, AI can help leaders shift from old hierarchical thinking to more effective and purposeful leadership.

‍If you take away just one thing from this blog, make it this: you need to start using AI, not just your organization. In every organization, and within every employee, is a mix of fear and curiosity. As Klaus shared, when Novartis rolled out Copilot and 10-15% of licenses went unused, their response was for the CEO to start using it. It maps to what I see every time we roll out Nadia with a new client. When a leader goes on the journey with employees, it makes the anxiety and fear of AI an addressable problem.

Put the tech in people's hands and pay attention to the outliers

Of course, just because you start using AI doesn’t mean every employee will. Some are enthusiastic to adopt. Others would rather quit their jobs. To get it right, it helps to pay attention to the outliers in both directions. We can learn from the cheetahs and the sloths.

Early adopters ‍

These are the employees who are more likely to take a job because they get to use cutting-edge AI. It’s the most exciting part of their day, and getting to use AI feels like play to them. These early adopters spread AI to others, if you give them the chance. And if you watch your early adopters, you’ll also learn what characteristics, skills, and knowledge are needed to collaborate with AI.  

Resistors‍

They’re HR’s real customer in change management. It doesn’t matter how you say it, or even what benefits are in it for them. They are dead set against AI on principle. It can be easy to write this group off, but no one can better tell you what’s holding your organization back from adopting AI, and the more specifically you understand the problem, the better you can programmatically address it.  

Tactically, I usually suggest leaders find their smartest early adopters and build a cross-functional team utterly dedicated to understanding how AI can and will affect a range of things that are core to your business. Have them imagine what the 3-month, 3-year, and 10-year impacts could be, and then take those numbers and divide them in half, because the change and impact of AI are happening much faster. 
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Don't wait — change is coming faster than we think

How fast this change is coming is often what surprises people most about AI, and there’s a reason for this. AI is exponential, like driving in a heavy fog, as Geoffrey Hinton said in our AI Summit keynote. We can see a little ways down the road ahead, but far less than we think, and the point, where even the outlines are invisible, comes much sooner than expected.

We’re still learning just how exponential AI is, but the change is coming faster than any technological shift we’ve previously experienced. Those who start the journey now will be leaps ahead of those who waited. 

For more on Leadership When Everyone Has AI:

• Watch our Leadership When Everyone Has AI webinar with me and Kevin Delaney
• Read the TIME insights from our panel at the 2025 World Economic Forum. Hosted by the Washington Post and Charter